Conservapedia’s Affair with Literalism Continues

Last Friday, Obama mocked congressional Republicans for characterizing his “pretty centrist” healthcare plan as some kind of “Bolshevik plot,” explaining that such scorched-earth argumentation leaves Republicans with little to no room to maneuver, and in fact demonstrates the party’s bad faith. Watch:

Clever, hard-hitting, and long overdue. But from the minute Obama said the word “Bolshevik,” this reaction from far-right outlets was unavoidable:

Conservapedia has never been one for metaphor or literary devices. A respect for context, and a willingness to look for meaning beyond the literal, is too much to ask from young-earth creationists.

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But to put Conservapedia into context, it was RobSmith that put that up. The guy sees communist everywhere, or claims to at least. The entire of the Democrats are already in league with the Reds to turn the country over to them and just yesterday, he was selling George W Bush out as a liberal. Personally I think he believes less about what he says than the way he can spin it.

I suppose as the guy who ran away from formerly Bolshevik plot, I agree with Bam. However, now that I outed myself as a former resident of USSR, I fear what Conservapedia will say about me. After all, during my citizenship interview I was asked if I or anyone I know has ever been a member of the Communist Party. I fear the gig is up and my permanent stay in this great country may be over, comrades.

P.S. TO Rob Smith, I am being sarcastic, I am as American as Apple Pierogi.

Friends, this is a rare treat. We’re in the company of a legitimate Conservapedia administrator, the vaunted RobS. They’re generally too afraid to engage in conversation anywhere where they can’t ban the other participants. Let’s take advantage of the chance. Rob, what do you understand “Maoism” to be?

“ACG”, you’re clueless about the relationship between Muslims and time. This sort of [[deceit]] is common among Liberals. I will be reviewing your edits and hope to see substantive contributions from you soon. Thanks and godspeed.

Well thank you. Mao advocated a doctrine that could short cut the historical process of revolution. A rag-tag group in the hills, like Mao, Castro, Che, or Ho Chi Minh, could descend on the cities and destroy the decaying paper tigers like Batisita or Chaing ki-shek without infiltrating the labor unions or stirring up the workers with commie agitprop.

Come on, Rob, now you’re just back where you started. Specifics, please!

Have any dissident professors been sent to work the fields lately? Are American peasants melting down their tools to increase the national steel output? How many factories have been collectivized? And is the current five-year plan available for download anywhere?

What he’s doing now is moving on the most popular issues — the environment, health care, and the economy. He’ll be progressive on the environment because that has broad popular support; health care will be extended to children, then made universal, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance corporations will stay in place, perhaps yielding some power; the economic agenda will stress stimulation from the bottom sometimes and handouts to the top at other times. It will be pragmatic …On foreign policy and the wars and the use of the military there will be no change at all. ….And never, never threaten the military budget. That will unite a huge majority of congress against him.

And I agree with this strategy. Anything else will court sure defeat. Move on the stuff you can to a small but significant extent, gain support and confidence. Leave the military alone because they’re way too powerful. For now, until enough momentum is raised. By the second or third year of this recession, when stimulus is needed at the bottom, people may begin to discuss cutting the military budget…Obama plays basketball….you have to be able to look like you’re doing one thing but do another. That’s why all these conservative appointments are important: the strategy is feint to the right, move left. Any other strategy invites sure defeat. It would be stupid to do otherwise in this environment.

Look to the second level appointments. There’s a whole govt. in waiting that Podesta has at the Center for American Progress. They’re mostly progressives, I’m told (except in military and foreign policy). …”

Mark Rudd, a founder of Progressives for Obama, said point blank he belongs to the Maoist faction of SDS.

Your most damning evidence is some Maoist guy’s wishful thinking about what Obama may be doing in the future? Wow, that gun’s not just smoking, it’s on fire!

So just to summarise, the full extent of Obama’s rampant Maoism is A) that he appointed a couple of people who either have been tenously associated with Maoism over twenty years ago or at least read something by Mao at one point, and B) that a couple of Maoists like what he’s doing.

Considering the evidence is that strong, I think it’s great that American democracy has people like you watching out for it, because you’re clearly on the treshold of a revolution over there. Yessir! Any day now!

The People’s Work…

Marius is a government attorney for a jurisdiction in the New York metropolitan area. His views may coincide with, but do not represent, those of the people of the state of New York, or his former clients.